Recommended Reading

Managing the Risk of Fraud and Misconduct: Meeting the Challenges of a Global, Regulated and Digital Environment [Hardcover]
by Richard H. Girgenti and Timothy P. Hedley
As evidenced by business headlines today, fraud and misconduct are among the most daunting challenges for business leaders. Only those who set in place a comprehensive strategy to prevent, detect, and respond to unethical or illegal acts within their organization will become the leaders in their industry. The authors explain how to assess vulnerabilities within a company and design, implement, and manage a program targeted at controlling the risk of fraud and misconduct. Among the subjects covered are money laundering, bribery, and using technology to identify fraud, as well as recovering, preserving, and analyzing electronically stored information.

IT Risk: Turning Business Threats into Competitive Advantage
by George Westerman and Richard Hunter
Are you exposing your business to IT risk, and leaving profit opportunities on the table? You might be if you are managing your IT risk using more traditional approaches. IT Risk, a new book based on research conducted by MIT s Center for Information Systems Research and Gartner, Inc., helps companies focus on the most pressing risks and leverage the upside that comes with vigilance.

Enemy at the Water Cooler, Real-Life Stories of Insider Threats and Enterprise Security Management Countermeasures
by Brian T. Contos, CISSP
The book covers a decade of work with some of the largest commercial and government agencies around the world in addressing cyber security related to malicious insiders (trusted employees, contractors, and partners). It explores organized crime, terrorist threats, and hackers. It addresses the steps organizations must take to address insider threats at a people, process, and technology level.

Insider Threat: Protecting the Enterprise from Sabotage, Spying, and Theft
by Eric Cole, Sandra Ring
As network defense perimeters get stronger and stronger; IT, security, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals are realizing that the greatest threats to their networks are increasingly coming from within their own organizations. These insiders, comprised of current and former employees or contractors, can use their inside knowledge of a target network to carry out acts of sabotage, espionage, and theft of data. This book will teach IT professional and law enforcement officials about the dangers posed by insiders to their IT infrastructure and how to mitigate these risks by designing and implementing secure IT systems as well as security and human resource policies.

Role-Based Access Control, Second Edition
by David F. Ferraiolo, D. Richard Kuhn, Ramaswamy Chandramouli
Role-based access control (RBAC) is a security mechanism that has gained wide acceptance in the field because it can greatly lower the cost and complexity of securing large networked and Web-based systems. Written by leading experts, this newly revised edition of the Artech House bestseller, Role-Based Access Control, offers practitioners the very latest details on this popular network security model.

The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win
by Dave Ulrich and Wendy Ulrich
According to studies, we all work for the same thing – and it's not just money. It's meaning. Through our work, we seek a sense of purpose, contribution, connection, value, and hope. Digging down to the meaning of work taps our resilience in hard times and our passion in good times. That's the simple but profound premise behind this groundbreaking book. Using the model of the "abundant organization," the authors provide you with the "how" to create meaning and value in your own workplace.

The Real Business of IT: How CIOs Create and Communicate Value
by Richard Hunter and George Westerman
If you're a general manager or CFO, do you feel you're spending too much on IT or wishing you could get better returns from your IT investments? If so, it's time to examine what's behind this IT-as-cost mind-set. In this book, Richard Hunter and George Westerman reveal that the cost mind-set stems from IT leaders' inability to communicate about the business value they create-so CIOs get stuck discussing budgets rather than their contributions to the organization.

World-Class IT: Why Businesses Succeed When Technology Triumphs
by Peter A. High
Technology is all around us. It is so pervasive in our daily lives that we may not even recognize when we interact with it. Despite this fact, many companies have yet to leverage information technology as a strategic weapon. What then is an information technology executive to do in order to raise the prominence of his or her department? In this book, recognized expert in IT strategy Peter High reveals the essential principles IT executives must follow and the order in which they should follow them whether they are at the helm of a high-performing department or one in need of great improvement.

The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times
by Scott Anthony
Experts agree: The turbulence triggered by the economic shock of 2008 constitutes the "new normal." Unfortunately, too many managers have become paralyzed by it, capable only of slashing costs indiscriminately. Though examining spending during recessions makes sense, the smartest executives do much more. As Scott Anthony reveals in this book, these leaders continue innovating – by stopping ineffective initiatives, changing key business processes, and starting more productive behaviors. Result? Their companies emerge from downturns stronger than ever. Providing a wealth of ideas, tools, and examples from diverse industries, Anthony explains how to safeguard your company's profitability during even the toughest recessions.

Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Build Common Ground, and Reap Big Results
by Morten T. Hansen
In this book, author Morten Hansen takes aim at what many leaders inherently know: in today's competitive environment, companywide collaboration is an imperative for successful strategy execution, yet the sought-after synergies are rarely, if ever, realized. In fact, most cross-unit collaborative efforts end up wasting time, money, and resources. How can managers avoid the costly traps of collaboration and instead start getting the results they need? In this book, Hansen shows managers how to get collaboration right through "disciplined collaboration." Based on the author's long-running research, in-depth case studies, and company interviews, his book delivers practical advice and tools to help your organization collaborate for real results.

The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas
by G. Richard Shell, Mario Moussa
Shell and Moussa, both on the Wharton School faculty, aim to help readers get attention and sell their ideas through strategic relationship-based persuasion, or "woo" or "winning others over." The authors consider wooing to be one of the most important skills in a manager's repertoire; while the concept may seem simple, mastering it is an art. The challenge is in striking a balance between what the authors identify as the "self-oriented" perspective – where focus is on the persuader's credibility and point of view – and the "other-oriented" perspective, which focuses on the audience's needs, perceptions and feelings. The authors examine the most important moments of influence and provide a four-step process to achieving goals: survey your situation, confront the five barriers, make your pitch and secure your commitments.

High Altitude Leadership: What the World's Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success
by Chris Warner and Don Schmincke
Leadership is often a risky, lonely role possessing nearly unbearable lows and fleeting highs. Despite this emotionally and intellectually draining roller coaster, a handful of leaders deliver stunning results, with great consistency. They push past current leadership trends in order to achieve the most extremely challenging goals. They don't fall prey to the platitudes or clichés we see so often see in leadership theory. Instead, they succeed by recognizing and surviving the dangers that challenge them as they take themselves and their teams to higher levels. These rare individuals are those that Chris Warner and Don Schmincke call High Altitude Leaders. In High Altitude Leadership they show how to become that kind of leader.

Managing in Turbulent Times
by Peter F. Drucker
This important and timely book, is still relevant for today's tough economic environment. The book concerns the immediate future of business, society and the economy, and, as the author explains, "is concerned with action rather than understanding, with decisions rather than analysis." It deals with the strategies needed to transform rapid changes into opportunities; to turn the threat of change into productive and profitable action that contributes positively to our society, the economy and the individual.

The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable
by Patrick M. Lencioni
Imagine running into the ultimate management mentor late one night on an otherwise deserted commuter train, and walking away from the strange encounter with an encapsulated guide to success in the corporate world. That's exactly what screenwriter and business coach Patrick Lencioni has done in The Five Temptations of a CEO: A Leadership Fable, placing his tale in an easy-reading and thought- provoking kind of self-help novel.

Innovation at the Speed of Laughter: 8 Secrets to World Class Idea Generation
by John Sweeney
Borne from the formula used for more than 45 years to help write outlandish satirical comedy, Sweeney's book describes eight principles that guide companies, leaders and individuals to generate more and better ideas. Using client case studies, individual testimonials and a lighthearted writing style, this book is especially appealing to business leaders, team builders and companies seeking to find the "next big idea."

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The Heath brothers (coauthors of Made to Stick) address motivating employees, family members, and ourselves in their analysis of why we too often fear change. Change is not inherently frightening, but our ability to alter our habits can be complicated by the disjunction between our rational and irrational minds: the self that wants to be swimsuit-season ready and the self that acquiesces to another slice of cake anyway. The trick is to find the balance between our powerful drives and our reason. The authors' lessons are backed up by anecdotes that deal with such things as new methods used to reform abusive parents, the revitalization of a dying South Dakota town, and the rebranding of megastore Target. Through these lively examples, the Heaths speak energetically and encouragingly on how to modify our behaviors and businesses. This clever discussion is an entertaining and educational must-read for executives and for ordinary citizens looking to get out of a rut.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
by Daniel H. Pink
According to Pink, everything we think we know about what motivates us is wrong. He pits the latest scientific discoveries about the mind against the outmoded wisdom that claims people can only be motivated by the hope of gain and the fear of loss. Pink cites a dizzying number of studies revealing that carrot and stick can actually significantly reduce the ability of workers to produce creative solutions to problems. What motivates us once our basic survival needs are met is the ability to grow and develop, to realize our fullest potential.

The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals And Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World
by Peter M. Senge, Bryan Smith, Nina Kruschwitz, Joe Laur, Sara Schley
Imagine a world in which the excess energy from one business would be used to heat another. Where buildings need less and less energy around the world, and where "regenerative" commercial buildings – ones that create more energy than they use – are being designed. A world in which environmentally sound products and processes would be more cost-effective than wasteful ones. A world in which corporations such as Costco, Nike, BP, and countless others are forming partnerships with environmental and social justice organizations to ensure better stewardship of the earth and better livelihoods in the developing world. Now, stop imagining – that world is already emerging.

The Last Lecture
by Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was asked to give a "last lecture," he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Bestselling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb continues his exploration of randomness in his fascinating new book, The Black Swan, in which he examines the influence of highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. Engaging and enlightening, The Black Swan is a book that may change the way you think about the world, a book that Chris Anderson calls, "a delightful romp through history, economics, and the frailties of human nature."

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
by Thomas L. Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman is not so much a futurist, which he is sometimes called, as a presentist. His aim in The World Is Flat, as in his earlier, influential Lexus and the Olive Tree, is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn't going to be flat, it is flat, which gives Friedman's breathless narrative much of its urgency, and which also saves it from the Epcot-style polyester sheen that futurists – the optimistic ones at least – are inevitably prey to.

Zoom
by Istvan Banyai
Open this wordless book and zoom from a farm to a ship to a city street to a desert island. But if you think you know where you are, guess again. For nothing is ever as it seems in Istvan Banyai's sleek, mysterious landscapes of pictures within pictures, which will tease and delight readers of all ages. This book has the fascinating appeal of such works of visual trickery as the Waldo and Magic Eye books.